Monday, December 20, 2004

The Odds Against

An
Associated Press article describes the execution of two Iraqi electoral
officials by insurgents in a Baghdad street.

A series of pictures taken by an AP photographer show three
pistol-wielding gunmen, who had earlier stopped a car carrying the election
officials and dragged them into the middle of Haifa Street in the midst of
morning traffic. ...

In the dramatic photo sequence one of the captives is shown lying on his
side on the pavement, while a second is on his knees nearby in the street. The
gunmen casually display their handguns as they shoot the two men. Both of the
victims shown in the sequence wore traditional Arab headscarfs. In contrast,
the attackers were bareheaded and apparently unafraid to show their faces. The
entire sequence shows only two of the three victims lying dead after they were
shot at close range. The final photo of the sequence shows a man standing near
one of the bodies waving for help, as a U.S. Apache helicopter appears above
the crime scene after the gunmen apparently melted away into the crowd.

Three employees, identified by the commission as Hatem Ali Hadi
al-Moussawi, a lawyer and deputy director for the commission's Karkh office,
and two of his office employees Mahdi Sbeih and Samy Moussa, were dragged from
their cars and shot dead. Two men escaped unhurt. In the dramatic photo
sequence one of the captives is shown lying prone on the pavement, while the
another one seems to be kneeling as the armed men approach, casually carrying
their handguns or aiming them at the men.

Even with today's proliferation of compact photographic equipment, a
legitimate photojournalist rarely gets the opportunity to capture an execution.
Apart from the beheadings which are purposely recorded on video by the
jihadis and from gun camera film, most footage of people actually being shot
are taken by photographers in company with combatants who are ready to film an
ambush. Those individuals are combat cameramen for their armies or embedded
reporters. The most famous analogue to the Associated Press sequence of
photographs is probably the Eddie Adams
photo of the execution of Vietcong Captain Bay Lop by South Vietnamese
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Adams owed that opportunity to General Loan himself,
who brought Adams along to cover what he believed to be a justifiable summary
execution. Adams depressed the shutter at exactly the moment Loan fired and
photo analysis actually shows the impact of the bullet on Bay Lop's skull.

It may have been pure luck, but it was surely the longest of odds that would
have brought an Associated Press cameraman to the site of a surprise attack on
two Iraqi electoral workers. As it was, the AP photograph was unable to capture
the actual execution, only the moments shortly before and after the Iraqis were
killed. Although the Eddie Adams photograph was widely used to illustrate the
'brutality' of the Saigon government, the photos taken by the Associated Press
are unlikely to reflect badly on the electoral worker's killers. Press reports
highlight the confidence and boldness of the insurgents. "Both of the victims
shown in the sequence wore traditional Arab headscarfs. In contrast, the
attackers were bareheaded and apparently unafraid to show their faces",
suggesting that 'collaborators' must conceal their faces while the Ba'athists
stride with impunity through the light of day. It was fortunate for the AP that
their photographer was accidentally there.

Sometimes they are accidentally there on purpose. In November of 2003, two
French journalists from
Paris Match accompanied a group of men who set out to shoot down a DHL
Airbus. A translation of the "journalist's" account is given below:

On Friday, Nov. 21, somewhere in Baghdad, the head of these commandos told
us that one day he had seen a DHL Airbus, flying low. "We did not fire, we
never fire on civilian aircraft. Also, I didn't know what DHL stood for.
Afterwards, when my friend explained that these planes transported the mail of
GI's, I regretted that a little. I could have deprived the soldiers of the
letters from their moms and their fiancees. Next time, I'd fire!"

After driving half an hour in the countryside, the leader gives the order
to stop at the end of a sunken lane and to park the cars so that they are
ready, spread out and pointed in different directions. We are within two
kilometers of the airport, a little before 9 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 22. ...
Three men wait at the wheel of the cars, ready to go. Suddenly, the leader,
who, since arriving has been listening acutely and scanning the sky, shouts,
"A plane! Come on, you, get in position, prepare to launch!" The aircraft is
flying approximately 1500 meters up, 3 km away from us. The two men, 50 meters
apart from each other, await the orders, Strellas on their shoulders. They
believe they've spotted an American military Boeing 747. The leader howls,
"Fire!" At 9:08 the first missile takes off. The second, five seconds later,
misses the target. The leader jumps with joy like a child and raises the hands
to the sky, "Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!" Then he gives the order to quickly
pack up the weapons and each car takes off in a whirlwind, each in a different
direction. We will discover later by the press dispatches that the commandoes
had fired on a DHL Airbus... A civilian target!

The Paris Match account, though somewhat confused, conveys the impression
that not everyone knew what the letters DHL stood for. In any case, the target
was mistaken for a military 747, though of course, the attackers had no way at
all of knowing anything at all about the identity of the flight. The journalists
discover only later that the "commandoes had fired on a DHL Airbus... A civilian
target!" Sacre Bleu! So sorry. Such careless noncombatants. Recently, the
Guardian described how difficult it was to keep the noncombatant status
while the United States exists on the planet.

The chief executive of the British Red Cross has warned that the
international movement's neutrality is fast becoming a casualty of the global
"war on terror". Sir Nicholas Young told the Guardian that the US-led
coalition's defiance of international law in Iraq threatened to obliterate the
capacity of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement to operate in areas of
conflict.

In an interview in today's Society Guardian, he says: "The respect the Red
Cross relied on, the sense that when we're wearing our emblem and doing our
work we are protected, we are sacrosanct, is under threat. "We are able to
work across the frontline for only as long as we are seen as neutral. The
moment that sense of impartiality is lost, our mission is lost. "We might as
well pack up and go home. We'll be seen as part of the war machine and we'll
be unable to operate." Driving through the streets of Baghdad in a clearly
marked Red Cross vehicle last year, Sir Nicholas says, he was acutely aware
that local people did not recognise the agency's neutrality. "I had a very
strong sense that we were regarded as the occupying powers," he says. "And
this was something I hadn't felt before."

Hard being hors de combat. The electoral workers were noncombatants
too.